but a few years old, and when John wore the crown of England, that a
girl of some twenty summers was seated in a vaulted room of a ruinous
old Saxon castle, surrounded by her bower-maidens, chattering and
laughing, and busily employed on some embroidery work. The castle
stood on a slight eminence, some three or four miles from the
sea-coast of Yorkshire, and commanding a glorious view of the uplands
of Cleveland, the wide expanse of ocean, the only recently completed
towers of St. Hilda's Abbey, as they stood proudly on the beetling
cliff, and the clustering of fishermen's huts on the margin of the bay
below, then called the village of Presteby, formerly Streoneshalh, and
now Whitby. It had been built by the half-mythical Saxon noble, Wada,
as a defence against the marauding Picts, who came over the border,
and more particularly against the Danish Vikings, who were wont to
land at Flamborough, and harry the land. In the year 867, they had
destroyed the Lady Hilda's monastery, and it lay in ruins until after
the Conquest, when it was re-built and re-endowed by William de Percy,
ancestor of the potent Earls of Northumberland, and about half a
century before the period of our narrative, it had been again pillaged
and the country laid waste by a Norwegian fleet. But, amid all these
storms, the old castle built by Wada held its own, although it now
showed in its features the ravages of time and the marks of the
batterings it had undergone from the hands of a succession of foes, in
the shape of fallen towers, crumbling walls, and decayed battlements.
After the Conquest, the castle and barony were granted by the King to
Nigel Fossard, a soldier who had fought for him at Hastings, and from
whose family it passed, after two or three generations, to Robert de
Turnham, by marriage with Johanna, heiress of the Fossards. They were
now dead, and slept side by side within the sacred precincts of St.
Hilda, having left an only child--Isabel--as heiress, and now mistress
of the ruined old fortress, and the domain of pasture and moorland
lying round it; the same fair girl whom we find seated at her
embroidery frame. The apartment in which the youthful group were
assembled was the Lady Isabel's bower, very different, however, from a
modern boudoir, being of the usual Saxon type. The walls and vaulted
roof were of roughly-hewn stone, with a low, stunted column in the
centre, and rounded arches, slightly decorated with a zigzag
ornamentation, and on one side was an unglazed opening to admit the
light, more like a loophole than a window. On the walls, suspended
from tenter-hooks, were arras, picturing the miracles of St. Hilda,
which served to give some semblance of comfort and cheerfulness to the
room; and the other furniture consisted of a table, or board resting
on two trestles, and half a dozen cross-legged stools.
Sounds of merriment and laughter echoed from the roof, as the maidens
plied their needles, the buoyancy of their youthful spirits, and the
outlook into what appears like a fairyland of the future, imparting a
sunshine which is the happy privilege of youth, but is denied to more
mature age. Yet, in the midst of all this joyous mirth, Isabel
occasionally sighed, as disquieting thoughts passed through her mind.
She was left in an unprotected solitude, and although the good Abbot
of St. Hilda's had been her father's friend, and had promised him on
his death-bed to watch over her and aid her by his counsel, he could
not supply the place of father and mother, of whom she had been
bereft, or of sister or brother, a companionship she had never
experienced. She had already begun to taste the cares and anxieties of
her position, and looked forward with some degree of apprehension,
having learnt that the King, as absolute lord of the soil of England,
had the right and power to dispose of the hands of heiresses of any
portion of that soil which was only held of him by baronial or
knightly tenure.
"The sun goes down apace," said Isabel, rising and going to look forth
from the window, "fold up the altar-cloth, we shall have time to
complete the embroidery before the obit of St. Hilda." She gazed out
upon the sea, sparkling with the glitter of the setting sun, and
looked upon the abbey tower on the cliff, still radiant with
brightness--an out-post, as it seemed to her, of the realms of heaven,
and she felt a peaceful calm steal over her mind. Suddenly her eyes
gleamed with joy, and her heart began to throb with passionate
gladness. These emotions were awakened by the sight of a youth of
noble bearing, pacing with rapid steps the road leading to the castle.
This youth was Jasper de Percy, a scion of the afterwards illustrious
house of that name. He had long been affianced to Isabel, with the
consent and full approbation of their parents, and they loved each
other dearly and passionately. It was not long ere he was ushered into
her presence by the old seneschal of the castle, but with their soft
whisperings we have nothing to do, save that we know they consisted of
protestations of eternal love and anticipations of a happy future.
Whilst they were together the sun went down, and, as the bell of
compline rang out sweetly over the water, they knelt together and
uttered their evening prayer to the Holy Virgin, after which he
departed.
"Pax vobiscum!" said the Abbot, as he entered the room soon after,
"how fares it with my daughter?" She replied that she was well in
health, but somewhat disquieted in soul, and told him what she had
heard about the King having the disposal of the hands of heiresses,
and asking him if it were so. He explained the law to her, and knowing
and approving of her love for young Percy, expressed a hope that His
Majesty would not interfere in her case, but, added he, "King John is
a bad man, unscrupulous in his actions, and an arch-heretic, even to
the defying of the Holy Father at Rome--the Vicegerent of God upon
earth, saying that he will allow no foreign priest to meddle in his
dominion." After some further conversation, Isabel knelt at his feet,
confessed her little faults, received absolution, and the Abbot
returned to St. Hilda's. So the days and weeks went on in their usual
routine, with nothing to disturb their serenity, until at length a
thunderbolt, as it were, fell suddenly in the midst of the little
community, utterly destroying all their fond hopes of happiness.
The scene now changes to Normandy. King Henry II. of England had four
sons, of whom William, the eldest, d.v.p., and Richard, the second,
succeeded, who d.s.p. The third, Geoffrey, married Constance, daughter
and heiress of Conan le Petit, Duke of Bretagne and Earl of Richmond,
and had issue, Arthur, who was heir to the throne of England on the
death of his uncle Richard, but, being absent in Brittany, John,
fourth son of Henry, usurped the throne, and when Philip of France
espoused the cause of Arthur, he invaded France with an army, to
maintain the position he had assumed, and with the intention of
removing the obstacle to his legal right to the throne. He captured
his nephew, after patching up a peace with King Philip, and sent him
to Falaise, with instructions to Hubert de Burgh to put his eyes out.
Hubert, however, compassionated the boy, and saved him from that fate,
upon which King John removed Arthur from his custody, and had him
taken to Rouen, and placed in safe keeping. The midnight bell at St.
Ouen had rung out over the Norman city, and, saving that, all was
still in its tortuous streets, excepting the footsteps of three
persons going down to the river-side. They went along stealthily, one
of them, a boy, with seeming reluctance, and who appeared to be
expostulating with the two men who urged him along. "I tell thee,
boy," said he who was evidently the chief of the company, "that thou
shalt be Duke of Bretagne and Earl of Richmond, and we are but taking
thee to a place of safety wherein to abide until these untoward
matters that agitate the realm of France can be arranged." "But my
crown, the crown of England, my inheritance!" commenced the boy as
they arrived at the water's side, when the two men forced him into a
boat and pushed it off upon the Seine, and it glided down the river
beyond the confines of the city. The leader of the party was King
John, and the other his esquire, an ill-favoured bully, with an evil
cast of the eye, a Poictevin by birth, and called, in derision, Peter
de Malo-lacu, afterwards softened down to Maulac, and eventually to De
Mauley. He was one of the tools and evil counsellors of John, and was
ever ready to commit any crime provided he were well paid for it.
Their companion was the boy Prince, Arthur. The night was dreary and
murky, and the wind wailed a mournful cadence through the trees, well
befitting the contemplated deed of blood. The boat had passed some
distance down the river, and Arthur, fearing some foul design, was
imploring his uncle to be taken back to Rouen, when the Poictevin, in
reply to a signal from the King, suddenly plunged his dagger up to the
hilt in the boy's breast, and at the same moment seized him by the
legs, and pitched him over the side of the boat into the river, to
pass down to the sea with the ebbing tide.
"'Twas well done," said John to his companion in guilt, "that obstacle
to our ambition is removed for ever; and as for thee, Peter, thou
shalt be great amongst the nobles of our realm. It will be hard if I
cannot find an heiress lacking a husband, and thou shalt be a baron of
England."
Again are we among the merry hills and dales of Cleveland. The summer
has passed away, the leaves of autumn have fallen, the fierce blasts
of the wintry winds of North Yorkshire have toned down into the gentle
gales of spring, and a glad sunshine pervades land and sea. But there
is wailing and lamentation within the walls of Wada's old castle, and
saddened hearts beneath the shadow of St. Hilda's tower. The marriage
of Isabel and Jasper had been arranged, and nothing was wanting for
its consummation but the sanction of the King. A messenger had been
despatched to the Court of John to obtain his consent, but he replied
that it could not be, as he had other views in regard to the heiress,
and purposed, by giving her hand to a brave warrior of Poictou, to
raise her to a dignity far above anything ever attained by the
Turnhams or the Fossards; in short, that he intended giving her in
marriage to his friend and companion-in-arms, Peter de Maulac. Hence
those tears and lamentations, as there was no resisting the King's
will.
A few months, and there stood before the altar of St. Hilda, decorated
with the embroidery from the deft fingers of Isabel and her
bower-maidens, an ill-assorted couple. On the one side a
forbidding-looking man, with a ferocious cast of countenance and an
eye of ill omen; on the other, a gentle, delicate girl, of symmetrical
figure and beautifully chiselled features, but pale as a corpse, and
with eyes swollen and bloodshot with weeping. Nevertheless, it
mattered not, the mandate of the King must be obeyed, and they became
man and wife.
Peter de Mauley, as he now chose to style himself, thus became, by
right of his wife, feudal lord of Isabel's demesnes, situated at
Egton, Juby-Park-Houses, and Newbiggin, near Whitby; Mauley Cross,
near Pickering; Bainton, near Driffield; Ellerton, near Pocklington;
and Seaton, near Hornsea; but the King compelled him to pay for the
livery of these estates a fine of 7,000 marks. He built a new castle
near the old one, and called it, from the beauty of the situation,
Moult-grace, but which the people, in consequence of his oppression,
transformed, by the change of a single letter, into Moult-grave, since
then corrupted into Mulgrave. He was a firm adherent of John in his
troubles with the Pope and the Barons, and was rewarded for his
services with other considerable grants of lands, the Sheriffdoms of
Dorset and Somerset, and, under Henry III., with the Governorship of
Sherborne Castle. He died in 1221, and the ill-fated Isabel
pre-deceased him, whose body he buried in Meaux Abbey, near Beverley,
giving with it a grant of land.
They had a son--Peter--who succeeded, who was followed by six other
Peters in unbroken succession, all of whom enjoyed the estates,
excepting the seventh, who died v.p. The fourth was created a baron by
writ of summons in 1295; but Peter the eighth, fourth in the barony,
dying without issue in 1415, the dignity fell in abeyance between his
sisters and co-heiresses--Constance, who married, first, William
Fairfax, secondly, Sir John Bigot, and who succeeded to Moult-grave,
and Elizabeth, who married George Salvin. The title was revived in
1838, as a barony by patent, in the person of the Hon. W. F. Spencer
Ponsonby, third son of the Earl of Bessborough, a descendant, through
females, of Elizabeth Salvin; but the old barony by writ still lies in
abeyance among the representatives of the above co-heiresses.
The death of Prince Arthur is still shrouded in mystery, the English
chroniclers giving different versions of it, and Shakspeare
representing him as being killed by a fall from the walls of his
prison when attempting to escape; but the French historians, who are
more likely to be correct, coincide in attributing it to the hand of
Peter de Malo-lacu, in the presence of John, or even to that of the
King himself.
The Earldom of Wiltes.
The famous Yorkshire family of Le Scrope, or Scroop, is one of the
most illustrious in the peerage roll of England; not, however, for the
number and dignity of their titles, which only amounted to five of
lesser rank, two of which are extinct, one dormant, and two in
abeyance, but, for the many eminent and influential men sprung from
the race, who have distinguished themselves in the State, at the
King's Council table, in the Church, at the Bar, on the battlefield,
and in the walks of literature. During three centuries, from Edward
II. to Charles I., there have been of the Scropes--two Earls, twenty
Barons, one Baronet, one Archbishop, four Bishops, one Lord
Chancellor, four Lord Treasurers, five Knights of the Garter, several
Knights Banneret, many Wardens of the Scottish Marches, three
immortalised in the pages of Shakspeare, one, "Keen Lord Scrope," in
the ballad of "Kinmont Willie," and another in the ballad of "Flodden
Field."
They were originally of Normandy, and in the reign of William I.,
Osborne Fitz-Richard, their first English ancestor, held several
manors in the Western counties. The first mention of them in
connection with Yorkshire is in 1287, when they held eight carucates
of land at Bolton, where they built Bolton Castle. They rose rapidly
in importance, ramifying in various directions, mainly into two great
branches, those of Masham and Bolton, subsequently having mansions and
domains at Bolton Castle; Clifton Castle, Masham; Danby
Hall, Middleham; Upsall Castle, Thirsk; Croft-on-the-Tees,
Ellerton-upon-Swale, Spennithorne, and South Kilvington; and are now
represented by a junior branch, seated at Danby-super-Yore.
Henry, seventh Baron Scrope, of Bolton, was one of the heroes of
Flodden, whose valour is sung in the ballad of Flodden Field. John,
eighth Baron, was implicated in the rebellion of the Pilgrimage of
Grace, but escaped the death of a traitor. Henry, ninth Baron, had
charge of Mary Queen of Scots, at Bolton. Henry, third Baron Scrope,
of Masham, was executed for treason, as was also Richard Scrope,
Archbishop of York.
The time in which Sir William Scrope, K.G., Earl of Wiltes, and King
of the Isle of Man, lived, that of the reign of Richard II., was one
of the most eventful in the history of England. Richard, son of the
Black Prince, was born in 1367, and succeeded to the throne of his
grandfather, Edward III., at ten years of age, in 1377, the government
being vested in twelve councillors, his uncles being excluded
therefrom. He displayed signs of vigour and ability during the
insurrection under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, when he met the rebels in
Smithfield, on which occasion the former was killed by Lord Mayor
Walworth; and in his invasion of Scotland, in 1385, when he penetrated
as far as Aberdeen, and burnt Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee; but
afterwards he threw himself into the arms of favourites, which excited
the jealousy of his uncles, when the Duke of Gloucester was chosen
head of the Council, and the parliament, called "wonderful," summoned
under his auspices, put two of his favourites to death, and
confiscated the property of the rest. When he reached the age of
twenty-two he threw off the trammels of guardianship, and for some
time ruled his kingdom with justice, but he possessed not the
necessary vigour to cope with the turbulent spirits by whom he was
surrounded, and still permitted himself to be governed by favourites,
of whom Sir William Scrope was one.
Sir William might almost be said to be born a courtier. His father,
Richard, first Baron of Bolton; his uncle, Geoffrey, first Baron of
Masham; and his maternal uncle, Michael de la Pole, son of a Hull
merchant, and created Earl of Suffolk by Richard II., were all
foremost men about the Court in military, diplomatic, legislative,
judicial, and other capacities. His father was a statesman of rare
talent, and resigned his chancellorship in 1380, in consequence of the
anger of the young King at his protests against the lavish grants he
made to his favourites. Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and De Vere, Duke of
Ireland, with Brember, Mayor of London, and Tresilian, were the King's
favourites in his early days, but in 1388, Gloucester and the
confederated Barons attacked them, compelled the two former to take to
flight, and put to death the two latter. After their dispersion, Sir
William Scrope became one of the principal advisers and favourites of
the King, who loaded him with honours and wealth. He was constituted
Seneschal of Acquitaine in 1383; Governor of the town and castle of
Cherbourg in 1385; and Governor of Queensborough Castle in the same
year; was appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household in 1393, and
Lord Chamberlain in 1395. He was sent as Ambassador to France to
negotiate the marriage of the King, in 1395, and to treat for peace,
in 1397. He was nominated Justicier of Chester, North Wales, and
Flint, in 1397, and in the same year Surveyor of the Forests in
Cheshire. In 1397, he was created Earl of Wiltes; the following year
had charge of the castle of Guisnes; and in 1399, was appointed
guardian of the realm during the absence of the King in Ireland. He
was a faithful servant and attached friend to his master, and laid
down his life in his service.
The causes of the deposition and death of Richard were his weak
character and his obnoxious mode of government, through favourites and
evil advisers, which were accelerated by the ambition and revenge of
his cousin Henry, Duke of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster. The Duke of Hereford had a quarrel with Mowbray, Duke of
Norfolk, each accusing the other of treason, and the King consented
that the matter should be decided by combat at Coventry, but when the
lists were opened and the combatants mounted, lance in hand, ready to
commence the fight, the King commanded them to desist, and arbitrarily
condemned Norfolk to banishment from the realm for life, and Hereford
for ten years, the latter being granted the privilege of taking
possession, through his attorney, of any inheritances that might fall
to him during his absence. Whilst he was abroad his father, the Duke
of Lancaster, died, and the King, in violation of his promise, took
possession of his widely-spread lands in Yorkshire and elsewhere,
including Leeds, Kippax, Almondbury, and many another manor in the
county. Henry, now Duke of Lancaster, had speedy intelligence of this
from his attorney, and gathering a few followers together, took
shipping for England, and landed at Ravenspurn, in Holderness, at the
mouth of the Humber. His ostensible motive in coming to England, and
perhaps his real intention, was simply to obtain possession of his
inheritance, with, possibly, some vague ideas of vengeance for his
banishment. But, as he passed through Yorkshire, he was joined by the
Percies and other powerful families, who welcomed him back to
England, and the people flocked round his standard, so that when he
approached London he found himself at the head of a considerable army,
and then he threw off his disguise, and proclaimed that he had come to
deliver the kingdom from the evil advisers of the Crown. The King had
gone to Ireland to subdue an insurrection, and had left the Earl of
Wiltes as guardian of the realm, who, on hearing of the march of
Lancaster towards London, fled, with others, to Bristol, hoping to
join the King there on his return from Ireland. The Duke followed them
thither, laid siege to the castle, "where at length," says Walsingham,
"William le Scrope, John Busby, and Henry Grene, were taken prisoners,
and they were forthwith, on the morrow, beheaded, at the outcry of the
populace." The Duke had now fully resolved upon striking for the
Crown, although he was not the legitimate heir, even if Richard were
removed, and it was his usurpation which gave rise to the subsequent
War of the Roses. In furtherance of his project, he considered it
desirable to win over the citizens of London, and in order to
conciliate those who were opposed to the favourites, and terrify
those who were friendly to the King and his government, he sent
thither the heads of Scrope, Busby, and Grene, in a basket, with a
letter, in which he said--"I beg of you to let me know if you will be
on my side or not, and I care not which, for I have people enough to
fight all the world for one day. But take in good part the present I
have sent you," etc. This produced the effect he wished for, as the
Londoners at once espoused his cause. The King was soon after
captured, sent to Pontefract Castle, and there murdered, after a
formal deposition; and Henry, with the consent of Parliament, assumed
the crown. He called a Parliament together, who, in the first year of
his reign, passed an Act of Attainder and Confiscation against the
Earl of Wiltes and other of Richard's friends; and it was assumed that
the earldom thus became extinct, although legally it only became
dormant, and presents one of the most curiously complicated and
interesting cases that ever came before the Court of Heralds or the
House of Lords, paralleled only, perhaps, in interest by the famous
Scrope-Grosvenor heraldic dispute, between Sir Richard Scrope, the
Earl's father, and Sir Robert Grosvenor, as to the right to bear
"azure a bend or" on their shields of arms, in which 400 witnesses of
the highest rank appeared in evidence.